Freezer-Friendly Pizza Dough

Friday night is usually pizza night at our house. I always like to serve “fun food” on Friday night, and pizza is actually the easiest fun food I know how to make. Hands-on time is about 10 minutes, and what comes out of my oven tastes like we paid $40.00 for it.

(I don’t know why I have pics of not-quite-done pizza, just know that the crust gets nice and brown and crispy.)

The down side is, sometimes on Friday afternoon I don’t really feel like making the dough. I mean there’s all that measuring (we’re talking 5 ingredients here people) and then there’s the mess to clean up (two bowls and a measuring spoon; this could set me back at least 3 minutes!). And some days I’m not going to be home around the time the dough would need to be started. (That’s a much better excuse isn’t it? You do have start the dough on time.)

So, on those days when I need a different way to get the pizza on the plates by 7:00, I turn to the freezer. Oh yeah… my friends, you can make pizza dough and freeze it. The trick is knowing at what point in the process to freeze it.

Here’s how I do it:

MIx all the ingredients except 1 cup of flour. I use my Kitchen Aid for this, starting out with the beater attachment.

A word about yeast: The only way you can hurt your yeast (and totally ruin your pizza dough) is to get it too hot. The water you use should be quite warm, but not hot. It’s better err on the side of too cool. Yeast will eventually do its thing even in the fridge, but it won’t ever do anything if you kill it. So, if you couldn’t very comfortably leave your finger in that water, it’s too hot.

If you have 5 minutes, go ahead and let that rest a bit.

Next I switch to the dough hook and add the rest of the flour (one cup at a time incase you don’t need it all but I usually do. Plus, it mixes better that way.)

If you don’t have a Kitchen Aid, you can totally still make this dough. I did it in a bowl, using a fork, for many years, even after my grandmother gave me her Kitchen Aid! It’s not a stiff dough, so it’s pretty easily done the “old fashioned way”. (But if ya got it… use it, right?)

When you’ve let it mix a while (2-5 minutes) transfer it from the bowl to a floured surface.
At this point I knead it just a few times just to get it all combined nicely, and because I actually enjoying kneading dough… for about the first minute.

If you’re going to make the pizza now, just leave it in one ball and follow these steps on my Pizza recipe.

If you’re making this to put in the freezer for later, follow these steps.

Divide the dough into 2 and form 2 balls. (These aren’t as uneven as they look, but I didn’t get it quite right.)

If you’re cooking for 2-3 people, freeze them in separate freezer bags. If you’ll use both; making 2 pizzas that will feed 2-4 each, then freeze them together in one freezer bag. Label it and get it in the freezer right away, you don’t want the yeast to start working.

*Note; this bag says “thaw 3-4 hours” but I think it’s safer to say 4-5 hours, depending on how warm your house is. The thawing time includes the time for it to rise.

To defrost the dough:

Remove from freezer.

Click over and follow the steps in my pizza recipe, scroll down to where it says “Let it rise”.

And there it is, the world’s best pizza dough, right in your very own freezer. (Incidentally, I’ve tried many pizza dough recipes. I don’t know why, I’ve had this one forever. My aunt, who makes the best pizza in the world, taught me how. I guess I’m just a sucker for a new recipe. I even tried one by a very popular blogger and guess what? It doesn’t get crispy! I can not eat homemade pizza that doesn’t get crispy on the edges. It’s sacrilege. So take my advice, and go with this one.)

Comments

Omgoodness! I love this! It is crazy because I was just thinking this morning that it would be cool to find a freezer friendly homemade pizza dough recipe!
Thank you so much for sharing at Marvelous Mondays this week- Pinned & sharing!

Hi Carrie,
So, you’ll have to come back and let me know if you tried it! Tonight is supposed to be pizza night at our house but I’m using my carpel tunnel (it really does hurt) as an excuse to get nachos. Sounds like a feasible one to me!
Thanks for stopping by and for sharing!

Thanks so much for sharing this idea Beth! I’ve always wanted to make homemade dough but have never attempted it… and your directions make it seem very manageable. I love the idea of freezing the dough, and I appreciated you adding in “Note; this bag says “thaw 3-4 hours” but I think it’s safer to say 4-5 hours, depending on how warm your house is. The thawing time includes the time for it to rise.” Sometimes I just glance at the pictures and follow whatever is going on there, so I’m happy I read more in depth. Can’t wait to try this out!

Beth..
Good morning from Kingwood,Texas..
I just registered to be a member on your family blog and so want to start making more meals freezer-wise so that my husband ( software developer who does not come home until after 7:20!at night) can spend more time with our 5 year old princess who has Aspergers and the apple of both of our eyes..
I so love all of the recipes so far and especially the pizza one(YUMMY)!!
My one question is with making the homemade dough for the pizza crust ,I have a great bread maker with a dough button..may I use my machine to make your delicious recipe for the dough? I do have a mixer but it is a small one?
Thank you for this time and have a blessed day.,

Hi Lydia! (Not sure if I mentioned in the post, but my daughter’s name is Lydia!)
I’m not overly familiar with bread machines but I would think you could use it just to the point of getting the dough mixed and needed some. You don’t want to let it begin to rise it you’re putting it in the freezer.
You can actually just make this dough by hand. That’s how I grew up doing it and it’s really not that big a deal. (This coming from someone who wouldn’t be interested in making bread without a stand mixer. It’s a small amount of dough and doesn’t need much kneading so by hand is fine.)
Thanks for joining my mailing list. I’m curious because I didn’t get a notice. I’ll have to check that out.
Blessings to you and your family!

Hi Beth…
Hope you and your family had a wonderful 4th of July..We did..
I just wanted yo let you know that the Dough button on my bread machine only mixes the ingredients for whatever dough is being made and then I take the dough out to do with it whatever needs to be done with it,,

I do have to say that I am the youngest of 9 children and I have a sister whose name is also Beth too:-)

Cool, so you can use it to mix up the dough for this recipe! If you wanted to go ahead and make the pizza you could just use whatever setting allows it to rise but not bake.
Looks like we have some good taste in names in our families!